Guild Wars 2 features confirmed

The new issue of MMOZine is out for download today and I’ll write a more general post about it in a minute, but given I know how fanatical our readers are about Guild Wars, I thought I’d do a separate piece on the Guild Wars interview in the issue.

As it’s the fourth anniversary of Guild Wars, we hooked up with Mike O’Brien, co-founder and Studio Head for Arenanet, creators of Guild Wars, for an exclusive interview. Not only did we talk about the success of the original, but he confirmed various aspects of its sequel, guild Wars 2. Nothing that the hardened fan won’t already know, but it’s a) good to see that these are still the plans and b) that Guild Wars 2 really does exist.

You can download the magazine for free, of course, and read the full interview, but for those who like to skip to the end, here’s what’s confirmed about Guild Wars 2:

The game is going to feature a more persistent world, rather than the heavily instanced world in the first Guild Wars. This is because the instances don’t provide “easy opportunities for socialising that large persistent areas provide”.

There’s 250 years gap between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2, some of which will be filled in by updates to Guild Wars. The first big update for Guild Wars, having switched from monthly updates to quarterly bigger ones, will arrive with the fourth anniversary.

Guild Wars 2 will work on the same commercial model as the original, which is to say, you will pay for the game like a normal PC game, but there won’t be a monthly subscription. No word yet whether there will be micro-transactions as well. A while ago NCsoft said all their games would feature these from now on, but there’s been no sign of them in either Aion: Tower of Eternity or Guild Wars 2.

Anyway, if you are a Guild Wars fan, then download the mag and read the full interview for yourself. Enjoy.